Page 12 of To Die For

I’m not fast enough.

I can still hear them… their footsteps right behind me. A steady, deliberate jog that matches my desperate sprint like a shadow.

They’re not chasing me. They’refollowing.

Playing.

The sound of it—three pairs of feet pacing me like wolves in the fog—makes the hair on my arms stand up. I know if I scream, no one will come.

No one butthem.

A sob rips out of me before I can stop it, my breath hitching in my throat as I shove myself around another corner… and hit a wall.

Not brick. Not wood. Corn. Dense. Unmoving. A solid, endless wall of stalks that stretches to the sky.

A dead end.

Panic claws at my chest like it wants out.

No, no, no—I spin around, ready to double back, to fight, todo something—but it’s too late.

They’re already there.

All three of them.

Silent at first. No words. No noise but the sound of their boots crunching over gravel, drawing closer in perfect sync.

They fan out. Deliberate. Blocking the only way out.

White Mask is the first to move. He steps forward with that same infuriating, fluid grace, his head tilted just slightly. I can’t see his eyes behind the cracked porcelain, but Ifeelthem.

Like a touch on my skin. Like cold breath against the back of my neck.

His stare crawls over me, my face, my chest, my shaking hands, and I feel every inch of it.

“Please,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage. The word comes out hoarse, like it had to claw its way up my throat.

Burlap Sack laughs, the sound low and rough. A sound that doesn’t belong in anything human. “Please,what, little fairy?” His voice scrapes over my skin like gravel and silk. “Please stop?” A beat. A grin I can’t see but canfeel. “Or please… keep going?”

A shiver races down my spine.

I can’t speak. I don’t know how. My throat is closing in around the panic.

But my body… My body betrays me.

My legs are still tense like they want to run, but my feet don’t move. My arms are trembling, fists clenched at my sides, but I don’t lift them.

Because deep in the pit of my stomach, underneath the fear, something else is stirring.

A heat.

Apull.

It’s twisted. Wrong. But it’s real.

I’m still afraid—gods, I’mterrified—but the fear is changing.

It’s merging with somethingawful.